Russia yesterday was one of five members -- and one of three permanent members -- of the UN Security Council to abstain from voting on a much watered down UN resolution threatening Iraq with travel restrictions. The resolution, backed by the U.S. and Britain, followed... MORE

Chisinau and Tiraspol officials have admitted to failure in their effort to produce a document on the delimitation and mutual delegation of powers in time for signing at the October 23 CIS summit in the Moldovan capital. The admission of failure follows a week's worth... MORE

Addressing a congress of the Ukrainian Trade Union Federation, President Leonid Kuchma charged that lawmakers are "parting with common sense" and succumbing to an "avalanche of populism" in the runup to the parliamentary elections. Kuchma cited the parliament's recent passage of an inflationary law on... MORE

Indian defense minister Mulayam Singh Yadav said yesterday in New Delhi that the government had approved the purchase from Russia of two diesel-powered submarines and three frigates. Itar-Tass identified the submarines as Project 877 boats -- the older KILO-class submarine already serving in the Indian... MORE

Complete confusion continues in Vladivostok, capital of Russia's Far Eastern Primorsky krai. The city currently has three claimants to the post of mayor, two of whom are in the hospital. The regional Duma -- which initiated the chaos on September 26 by sacking the democratically... MORE

There was confusion in Moscow yesterday over the fate of Russia's draft tax code, which President Boris Yeltsin on October 21 instructed the government to recall from the Duma. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin confirmed yesterday that the government had not withdrawn the bill but referred... MORE

This morning at the CIS summit in Chisinau, the Council of Foreign Ministers failed to pass Russia's proposal on creating a CIS Committee on Conflict Situations. Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov admitted that a majority of the ministers had various objections to the proposal. Moscow... MORE

Azerbaijani president Haidar Aliev stated on arrival in Chisinau for the CIS summit that he "would have liked to see in the CIS "equality of rights, respect for national interest, no attempts to form a new Union, and no privileged status for one particular country.... MORE

Lukashenka, Nazarbaev, and Akaev hailed Yeltsin's consent to a joint decision, effective January 1, to levy value-added taxes on exports in the country of destination, rather than in the country of origin. The three presidents hope to see a substantial rise in their countries' exports... MORE

Nazarbaev succeeded Lukashenka as chairman of the Interstate Council by virtue of the alphabetical rotation principle, which some in Moscow had suggested might be waived in Russia's favor in this case. No agreement was reached on rotating the chairmanship of the Integration Committee, the CU's... MORE